


my heart was flawed

by unorgaynized



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Age Difference, Bittersweet, F/F, POV Second Person, Stream of Consciousness, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 03:50:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18024119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unorgaynized/pseuds/unorgaynized
Summary: Elissa Farman looks back at her relationship with Rhaena Targaryen, and what has happened since then.





	my heart was flawed

Rhaena is a furious, broken thing, it was said, and you have made her so. 

You had met her while you were still half a child and she had stolen your breath and heart. She was tall and molten silver, inhuman in her beauty and fury. You thought you could not touch her without being burnt and you had never wanted pain so much in your life. 

She had lost brother and husband, brother and king, father and grandfather. She was a woman with children of her own, and when she would snap out to ensure their safety, you would see fire in her eyes and her skirts would turn like a tail. She was nothing you had ever seen before.

“I sail,” you had said dumbly, wanting to impress the woman who by all rights out to rule Westeros. You knew it could do nothing to impress her, she who was said to have lost her maidenhead in the clouds to a man not her brother-husband, a woman hunted by uncle and cousin.

She had been drained then, had looked exhausted and still she had turned to you, a poor excuse for a lady in your patched britches and rat-tail braids. Still, she had been courteous, and she had not seemed too disturbed. “Lady Alyssa.” 

“Elissa,” you corrected her before you could think better of it. “I am not named for your mother.” The words had tumbled out before you had thought better of them. _Would it have been so terrible a thing to lie_ , you’d wondered. Your heart had given a queer turn at the thought of allowing an association with the former queen. Brotherfucker this queen might have been, but you doubted she had felt anything of the same matter for her mother. Or so you had suddenly hoped desperately then, suddenly unsure if that would be such a terrible thing. Wouldn't it be good then, to be associated with your former queen?

A smile had curled in the corner of her mouth, and you gloried in that. “Alyssa,” she repeated, and your brows creased before you recognized it was only her Crownlands accent, that _Alyssa_ and _Elissa_ did not sound so dissimilar in King’s Landing and on Dragonstone.

 She was more of a woman than you were, as you were only five-and-ten and she was a widowed mother of one-and-twenty years. You wanted nothing more than to impress her. “When I’m in my boat, it is only the wind and the sea that can command me,” you said quickly. “I can make them work for me more often than not, and when I cannot, I can still push my own course.” Fair Island is sheltered from the storms that the Dur-- _Baratheons_ (held by the blood of Queen Argella) face on the other side of Westeros, and so you had been relatively secure once you took your first ride alone. You had only the Ironborn to fear, after all. “I have been sailing since I was six and crept out of the castle to the _Dark Maid_ , a boat waiting in the waters. I had little knowledge of what I was doing, but I had told myself if I did not succeed, I would rather die.”

“That is not unlike claiming a dragon,” she had responded, amused.

“So tell me more,” you told her, cat-quick and bold enough to put one of your hands on hers. She is your queen and you are forward, but she did not refuse. Not then, at least. Her hands were as hard as yours, from your years of bow and reign and rope and oar. The leathers of dragon-riding must be similar, you had thought, for you were no longer such a naif to think that the Targaryens are so favored by the beasts of fire that they do not need saddles and stirrups like a horse. 

“No,” she had said at last, though she had seemed almost regretful. “I cannot.”

“Cannot or will not?” You did not know it then, but you had trembled on an edge then. You had not been greedy for a dragon, merely greedy for her. At that time, you hadn’t know how much like a dragon she was, had not known there was little difference in lusting for a weapon and lusting for more of her. All you had known was the fluttering your your belly and the need to have her admire you. “You cannot tell me I am like you and not explain.”

Her title, her rights-- they had never sounded in your mouth since you met her. Her daughters were like younger sisters, and Aerea was as shy as Androw, Rhaella as strong and wicked as you had always wanted to be. You had befriended the girls while they were on the island, and later when they had vanished, you had missed them. They were princess to their mother’s queen, and you have never known a life before the Targaryens, though your father remembers the years before Aegon. You are alive because of the Targaryens, because Queen Rhaenys arranged the marriage of a daughter of the Reach’s Shield Islands to the son of Fair Isle. Rhaena has only her grandmother to blame for you, after all.

You had thought that she liked that about you, that you were so bold and bright, that you were willful and teasing. You had not known she was mourning Melony at that time, because Samantha and Alayne had put up walls around their queen to protect her. You trailed along after them enough, enough to see that sometimes she kissed Sam or Alayne when they weren’t kissing each other. You had felt so daring the first time you had seen that happen, felt so startled by the answering curl to your belly as you watched. You had joined them more after that, and they had made Fair Island a paradise. They had known her for years and so they dropped the formalities when alone. You were alone with her more often than not and had therefore seen little use in calling her _Queen_ when you could simply call her _Rhaena._

“Menace,” she had called you in those days, but the word was colored by fondness. “You cannot prize out all my secrets. Leave me some, Elissa.”

“Your menace,” you had responded archly, and then pressed a quick kiss to her lips and darted away. Now, you cannot recall if all of this was the same conversation, or if you have patched memories together to make a song of your romance. You had cursed yourself for kissing her then, for you were still half a girl to her woman, six years her junior, and she had been wedded and bedded, a widow and a mother. You had only scared off a betrothed and sailed around your island while she had ruled the skies and fled her uncle.

You were a maiden to her woman, but you were certainly not the girl that Franklyn thought you are. Were your will not strong, you would not have stolen your first night sail at six, climbing out of your window and running through town with a dagger in your small hand. Were you not adventurous, you would not be more used to the swaying waters than the solid ground. Were you not determined, you would not have sailed around your home before either of your older brothers had done so.

Were you not brave, you would not try to seduce a queen _because you wanted her_.

It had taken longer than you had wanted to have that finally happen, because she was concerned about your youth and the danger she placed you in by loving you, all while you ran around Fair Isle and terrorized your brothers with her former lovers. _Elissa Farman is a dragon’s whore_ , notes to Maegor surely said, and you had laughed at that possibility and commissioned yourself a small ship, naming it only _Bed_ and painting dragons on the stern. You were a merry, reckless thing, and neither of you realized how much you were to each other until you had to frighten off another betrothed and you realized that the only cloak you wanted was hers.

So you wed.

It was not a true wedding, not in any sense, because only Sam and Alayne were there. Sam played a septon and Alayne played your father, because Rhaena had let Sam kiss you before, and you had gone back to kissing Rhaena before it was Alayne’s turn. It made little difference to Rhaena who cloaked you, but when she swept your father’s cloak from your shoulders and replaced it with one with her personal sigil, you had never known so much joy. Dreamfyre had ended up burning the cloak you wore, but you kept a blackened corner of it, and you have slept with it at your breast ever since.

 When she was forced to wed Maegor. . .

You had raged and wept and screamed, but she was no less a dragon than her uncle, and she forbade you from going to her. You swore and railed, pled and humbled yourself, but her will was implacable. And so you had to watch your bride, your wife, the fire of your life leave you for a monster. Your own father restrained you from taking a boat and sailing to land, from riding the Roads to find your way to her. Clever you might be, brave you might be, but Maegor would not spare you, you knew. It did not matter. You wanted to be there for Rhaena, to support her, to help shield her from the monster she was made to marry.

You received little word, and it was always by other sources. Larissa once-Velaryon turned to be your greatest ally, and she was rarely able to tell you much. When she told you the princesses were found, and Rhaella sent to the Faith, you felt a wild hope swell. You sailed to Oldtown then, and visited your princess. There was not much you could do, but you could calm her rages some. You did not hide the truth-- like with Rhaena, you could never lie to her. If she asked how her mother was, you told her that you feared for her. When she asked about Maegor, you told her what you knew.

But you couldn’t stay long, not unless you intended to take vows and become a septa. You could never do that, you were too wild and free and in love with Rhaena. So you had to leave. The year Rhaena was wed to Maegor was the worst in your life and still continues to be. You never knew if you would wake to news of dragons fighting, of Aerea’s death, of Maegor killing the woman you loved. Every day no raven flew was another in which he raped her, and at times you felt so bleak that you wanted nothing more than to ride to King’s Landing and let Maegor kill you. It would be something, at least. You were restless, sailing up and down the coast of Westeros, meeting more people than you thought you could ever meet. 

Eventually a raven did fly-- but not to you. Rhaena had escaped and saved her daughter, she’d flown to her brother and mother, _and she did not send for you._ You tried sailing to the mainland so that you might ride to her, but your brother Franklyn barred you in a tower with no windows. You cursed at him-- how your lungs never seemed to give out that night! Your throat was sandpaper after several hours, but it was well worth it. Had Franklyn loved you before, you destroyed it that night.

You lived on a small island though, and were never able to rally many men to war. Fair Isle is for spoiled princes when the Ironborn are away, not for armies. You breed sailors and shipwrights to fall below Ironborn swords when Lannisters can no longer protect you, men to kill Ironborn, and women to cut their throats. You are a fierce people, but small. When ravens flew for battle, you were one of the last Westerlands houses to know. If Rhaena sent word, it was shot down by Maegor’s forces, or the bird was eaten. You had never asked her, and she never offered. Rhaena might not want to bring Maegor’s eye to your small isle, after all. A queen’s lover is a powerful hostage.

But she won, gods bless her, and she sent for you then. Rhaena’s brother prevailed, and your queen was queen no more. She had always been a queen, and yet her younger brother ruled now. Rhaena loved him, but you could not stand this usurping brother, grasping his hands over what ought to be Rhaena’s. By all laws, it ought to have been Aerea on the throne, shy little timid Aerea, or at the very least, Aerea wed to Jaehaerys for all that the thought of such incest still made you feel sick. Aerea was eight years younger than Jaehaerys, the daughter of his sister and brother. You didn’t consider Jaehaerys and Rhaena wedding, because she is _yours_ like how you are hers, and there shall ne’er be a man between you.

And Aerea was no longer like Androw then, she was like you, and Rhaella was like Androw rather than you. You didn’t question them or their mother, but you allowed them to think you did not know. It was better this way, after all. Let the princesses be happy, for they will never both be together again, nor allowed to be with their mother. You cursed the Faith for keeping Rhaella, but the princess who calls herself Rhaella is pleased. And just as you have never been able to deny Androw, you let her have her solitude. Let her be happy, you prayed, you! who had never been godly and hadn’t been about to start then.

Aerea clung to you, and you played with her. You were still not Rhaena’s age when you first met her on Fair Isle, and you had not a tenth of her losses. She still wept for Melony and her brothers at night. You stayed only for the coronation, to show the loyalty of Fair Isle, and then returned home. Prince Jaehaerys had barely noticed you, and you liked it more that way. His eyes were too clever by half, and you trusted him little more than you did Franklyn. 

And she came back to you, and you both decided she had to wed so that she couldn’t be pressured to marry by her kingly brother. Androw was the easy choice-- he was your brother, pretty enough, and had little interest in the charms of women. Such a low match brought little benefit to any who might rally for your queen, though he would also be be ill-suited to prince consort, as Androw had never been the cleverest man on the island. Androw had only wanted to please you then, and you didn’t realise that he did not know how the two of you loved each other until after you followed him into the bedchamber to enjoy the night with Rhaena.

You had a happy year then, on your island paradise. You often flew on Dreamfyre together, or you took Rhaena on your new _Maiden’s Fancy_. Sam and Alayne joined, as well as many of Rhaena’s old favorites. A lesser woman might have been jealous, but you welcomed those Rhaena had once loved. What love she had had for them faded into companionship, and you had missed Sam and Alayne much. You did not attend Queen Alyssa’s wedding when it came. She had never even considered Rhaena or Rhaella for the Throne, said Rhaena’s whisperers. Much as you both despised that red castle, the insult was great.

Rhaena played hostess and Lady of Fair Isle, a position unfilled since your Serry mother had sworn herself to the Silent Sisters. When before she had merely been the most honored guest, now with both a Farman in her bed and with a Farman as a spouse, she had the full run of the castle goings, with the full approval of your father. When your father died, your brother Franklyn wished to punish you, punish her. He tried to send her away and keep you here, like he had previously. Rhaena flew on her dragon, triumphing her heritage to all who saw, reminding us she was just as _Targaryen_ as her brother on the Throne, her second husband the Tyrant, and her grandfather the Conqueror.

You met your friends and brother at the docks. Leave the Targaryen-- leave _your_ Targaryen to the skies, because you will always choose the seas. He tried commanding you, and you insulted every part of him that you had not before. It took rather some imagination, but you stalled enough for others to come. This, see, was your power-- _you were loved_. You were a daughter of Fair Isle from the sea in your eyes, to the tide in your blood, to the waves of your rage, to the blood you would spill.

And the smallfolk, who had seen you on ships since you could crawl, who sailed with you when you were young, who were long used to your presence rose up and overtook his men. You can name each and every one who fought for you, you can name their wives and husbands and most of their children and their ships. (It is an Ironborn notion that every captain is a king on his ship, but both Fair Island and Southshield alike have enough iron blood from those you hate. It is not such a queer thing that you have adapted a notion of theirs, not when you have for naval prowess. Still, you recognize this and recognize them, and you have talked often. Your brothers have not.)

And you fled to follow your queen, your love. The Lannisters were your overlords and were it not for you knowing royalty for years, were it not for the fact that your lover was a dragon, you might have been intimidated by them. But you had faced down your brother and were riding on the surge of glee and love. You petitioned for Lannister men to see to it that Franklyn could not take his injured pride on your islandmen, and they went.

Lords and ladies alike flocked to your queen, many and more Rhaena’s other favorites outside of the bedchamber. Your brother was insulted after, and grievously so. Slow he might be, quiet and decidedly unmartial, but he was your brother, _husband_ to your lover, and so when they offer her a bastard to horn him with, when--

Lady Jocasta was not someone you could trifle with, for she still held Fair Isle in her husband’s name. She was your liege lady, and so you and Rhaena simply left. That she could not take out on your once-home, and so you travelled with her, making merry with your love and your friends and showing a good face. You might have only been the daughter of a small island, but you knew as well as anyone that to show joy was best. You ventured inland enough that you couldn’t hear or see the sea, and you wept. Rhaena always took you flying then, made sure to take you flying when you grew too restless. 

You’d had a thirst for adventure, and she’d known your boldness ever since you stole a kiss from her when you were too young to know tragedy. Your restlessness suited her, gave her more reasons to fly. You travelled over more of Westeros than you ever thought you could see those few months on the way to King’s Landing. You were present at Jaehaerys’s wedding to Alysanne, and your insides squeezed with distaste. Even still, incest wore on you, and they were too young. Alysanne had lost her father and two brothers and still you felt her a child. Surely you had been older at her age, were you not? You must have been. But she was charming and witty, and you knew that you despised Jaehaerys more than ever, because if he bedded his child-sister, there was nothing Rhaena could have said to change your mind for your hatred. You very well might have ripped out his throat with rusted nails if he had.

Jaehaerys gifted Dragonstone to Rhaena, _allowed_ her to take her daughter in hand once more. You wanted to spit in face for his backhanded gifts: Rhaena ought to rule the Seven Kingdoms; this spit of rock was nothing, and Rhaena’s daughter was not his, was never his. Still, you know well enough to smile and curtsey-- after all, you were a petty lord’s daughter, born after the Lannisters bowed their heads. Kingsblood might run in your veins, but these Valyrians were born to thrones and you had none in recent blood. If Jaehaerys questioned his sister’s paramour’s presence, you never knew. Once you arrived at Dragonstone, the brackish waters, the ever-present wind, and porous rock wore at you. The dampness pressed down on you in ways it had not ever before, but you were with Aerea again.

And it was not enough. You were too heavily reminded of when Franklyn locked you up. Fair Isle was a playing ground for summer princes, with bright sands and warm waters. A warm wind keeps you from snow in the winter, and Dragonstone is dark and closely-built, a black rise that twists up like horns. You could play for a little, be contented in how Rhaena glowed on her ancestral home, if not for the fact that Aerea withered, if not for each slap of the waves felt like a mockery of what you had wanted.

You did your best. You told Aerea stories of travel, of the western sea you grew up, of islands and sea creatures and planned to travel with you, take her to see adventure before she is old enough for a dragon. You told her of your dreams, wove your ambitions around her, curled her safely in stories. You begged Rhaena for money to build another ship. _Fair Maid_ was stranded in Lannisport, likely destroyed. And Rhaena refused, accused you of stealing her daughter. 

You were both sharp-tongued. But Aerea was there, and you could never turn her against her mother. Your mother would never forgive you that, though you had seen little of her since you were a girl. Rhaena’s rage was fierce then, and she accused you of calamities that chilled your blood. You did not blame her for her suspicions, not with how easily she was being replaced. Still her fear was absurd, surely brought on by her times with Maegor. Your heart had broken for her then, and you consoled her, kissed her and swore a thousand thousand vows to never leave her, that her suspicions were only Maegor’s poison in her mind.

You _loved_ her, and only her, after all. There were others you loved: Androw, Alayne and Sam, Rhaena’s daughters, but you loved them in different ways. Rhaena was the only woman you had ever wanted in your bed from before you had known what it meant to bed someone. You had thought all was well, and all indeed was for a short time. But it was short indeed an within weeks she was snapping at you like a dragon and you would shout back. Passion warmed your beds in arguments and apologies both, and your mind turned only to Rhaena. You cared little for anyone else, save for your friends and Aerea. Those you cared for then cared for Rhaena and much as the two of you were fire and ice both at times, you loved her more than anything, ached for her near as much as you ached for the sea.

Three years passed that way, three years in which you did not raise the plan to sail. But surely, you had thought, she had known, she would understood. You were five-and-twenty, and had spent near on eleven years in love with her. You had bent yourself to her will, and still that not helped. Surely, you had thought, she would bend and see that your adventure would heal what had sprung up between the two of you. _“I could not bear for you to leave me_ ,” she had said instead, bearing her vulnerabilities, but all you heard was her refusal.

When you heard her mother was with child again, at an age where she was grandmother already, Rhaena grew more difficult, and you were sea-starved, having spent more of your life on land than you had since you took to sailing. You did not ask her now, you knew she would deny it once more. In your foolishness, you had thought you might convince her to come with you, you had thought that surely this would help. You would be back in time for Queen Alyssa’s final birth, but that was not to be.

 _“I have asked you to stay,”_  Rhaena said at last after a pause so long you thought you might stop breathing. _“I will not beg. If you would go, go.”_ You understood then, in a heavy sort of falling that if you went on this voyage, she would not forgive you so easily. She would not go after you, she would turn her back on you and there would be nothing you could do to make it better. You knew, you understood, that if you went voyaging now, that it would take months, if not years to win back her favor if you lived to return.

But just as you felt you would drown without Rhaena, you would suffocate without the sea. You also knew if you had decided to stay, she would still be furious with you, and you could not think of how to live with her in that moment. So you decided to leave, because you would come back with jewels and maps and crowns. You gave your farewells to all and Aerea broke your heart, begging to come with you, and you broke hers by refusing. Three years ago, Rhaena had accused you of seducing her to the seas or to your side or away from her, and you had only loved the girl like a daughter. You could break your own heart and Aerea’s heart and Rhaena’s heart, but you could only break Rhaena’s heart once. You could not shatter her, and at that time you had had no intentions to. So you shed a tear, pushed her away and towards her mother.

 You set off then, and an idea had sprung in your head. Rhaena would never let you approach her after this, not for years. But if _you_ could make her approach you. . .

It had not been difficult to take the dragon eggs. You were a familiar scent, from your years with Rhaena. You did not mean to sell them, not at that time. You simply wanted Rhaena’s attention, her fury. You knew how to deal with her fury more than you did with her coldness, and if you set her on a merry chase, she might let loose some of her coldness. You knew a little of dragonlore from Rhaena, you knew that the eggs would only hatch for someone of Valyrian blood, from a dragon-lord lineage. There are no dragonseeds in your crew, no one with silver hair or violet eyes, and you have only the blood of Andals and First Men, not even a drop of Rhoynar. There is no one who can wake the eggs.

(You had hoped you did not take an egg that would have been woken by Aerea) 

You reach far too many storms. You are set upon by thieves. You nearly consider a day in a brothel before you know what you have to do. It is not yet too soon-- you know how you can still have Rhaena find you. She knows enough about your family, and if you leave them with men who cannot hatch the eggs. . . 

You’ll leave a trail. She will find you. 

Or, you began to wonder, would she kill you? You have stolen eggs, after all. You will sell them. It won’t have mattered that you sold them to Braavos, the city least likely to attempt a hatching, the Free City that despised dragons and dragonlords. Understanding dropped into your shoes then, fell through your body. 

You can never return, not unless she finds you. Once she finds you, you will never leave, if she leaves you alive to even do so. So the trail will be small, but it would be there. Alys was the name of a Serry aunt who wed into the Hightower line, and you have mentioned that before. It is similar enough to her mother’s name, and it would remind her of your conversation about your name. You are from the Westerlands, and you met her in the West, so will you would that in as well. Hill is the name of the West’s bastards, as she would know. Alys Westhill would call to her, would it not? It had seemed so simple to you.

The next two years were full of adventure. You recorded as much as you dared, sailing on your _Sun Chaser_. The name hinted at nothing, but you knew it not wise to pick anything that hinted at yourself, at Rhaena. News barely reached you, and you knew little of Westeros until you returned. It is hard, certainly to hear of all the chaos that had spawned in your train.

Alyssa is dead after the birth of a last daughter, and Rhaena returned from her mother’s death to horror. Sam and Alayne are dead, and your brother had murdered them. He had also poisoned a kind septa and two children Rhaena had taken into her household. They were girls, little older than Aerea and Rhaella would have been. When she went to confront your little brother, he confessed to all, and threw himself from a window. And Aerea was missing; she had claimed Balerion and vanished.

Your heart dropped even further, and you know that should Rhaena find you, she would give you no mercy. You will be fed to Dreamfyre. You should have been there for her through it all. You should have accompanied her to her mother's side, should have stopped Aerea from flying, should have killed your brother yourself before he could have harmed your friends, your Rhaena. There is only one thing that might save you from Rhaena's wrath, and it is only fortune that it will give you joy. You will find Aerea, you decided. You will sail around the world, you will find new lands, and you will go to every port, finding where a hoary old dragon might have taken your former lover’s daughter. You will return with her, as she always loved you. 

It was a good plan. Hightowers heard of your plan to sail west to go east, and three sign on with you, bringing beautiful sweet ships. One was even named for your shared Serry relative, and you judged that a good omen. And so you set off in glory, in hope. It was good at first, and you celebrated. But then the meat was full of maggots, and you lost the wind for two weeks, and you face storms and a kraken. You find new islands while fleeing the storm and beast, and name them for your conquerors, in the hopes that Valyrian gods or dragons might bless your voyage and you would be successful.

You then search for your companion ships, and find most of them. You bring them to the spits of islands, and you made repairs best as you could. You quarrel with your distant Hightower kin, who refuse to move on, and you sought their sense of power, their lust for acknowledgement. It is unsuccessful, and they leave.

You continue on. It is what you always do, after all. With the wind in your sails, dreams in your head, and your heart full of love, you continue on your journey. You will reach Essos from the west, you will sail along it, you will find Aerea and return her to Rhaena, the queen you have broken. The gods, for all that their existence is questionable, would not be so cruel to give Rhaena more sorrows. You can fix this. You can fix her. You will find new lands and name them for her, writing her name across history.

You will see her again. You’ll kiss her again, make love to her again, and she will not strike you. You will live, with or without her, but you will do what must be done first.

**Author's Note:**

> I meant to get this out for Femslash February and then meant to get it out for ASOIAF rarepairs. oops lmao


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